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One of the important reasons that the Irish Times
should use km/h rather than kph for wind speeds is that they should be educating
their readers in the correct usage of metric symbols. Now that the Irish
Republic uses km/h on its roads, anybody who is charged with driving at "70
kph in a 50 kph zone" should be able to escape the charge on the technicality
that "kph" has no meaning in law - certainly not if Ireland is following its
obligations under the EU directive on units of measurement.
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, December 31, 2005 6:10
PM
Subject: [USMA:35523] Use of metric on
Irish Times weather page
Just sent the following e-mail to the Irish
Times. We'll see what sort of response I get.
Happy New Year to all!
Ezra
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Dear Irish Times:
I notice on your weather page:
that you are referring to wind speeds in "kph"
for "kilometres per hour". In fact, the correct abbreviation is "km/h"
according to the BIPM (Bureau International des Poids et Mesures). Is it
possible to switch to "km/h" in the future?
I also notice that, while you refer to
temperatures exclusively using degrees Celsius at the top of the weather page,
you include degrees Fahrenheit in parentheses following the temperatures in
degrees Celsius in the body of the page. May I suggest that sticking to
degrees Celsius only will provide a cleaner and more consistent presentation
of the information?
Thank you for your kind attention in this
matter.
Sincerely,
Ezra
Steinberg
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